Inconsistencies not explained by lore

[Masta Squidge]

It seems that the different systems onboard all run on different operating systems, that do not communicate with each other very much. Say, you scan a body using the FSS and it shows the body has geolocial and/or biological signals. This data isn't sent over to the SysMap software, which is completely unaware of such signals until the DSS collects this same information and sends it to the SysMap.

Also, it looks like the HUD's navigation software provider has mistakenly installed some kind of educational version pre-schoolers can play with, when they're taught about piloting spacecrafts. Instead of providing any real, useful information about the selected body when opening the window from the NavPanel, we're just given some vapid "This is a moon. Moons are celestial bodies. A commander can explore its surface." nonsense.

As a professional adult working in a professional field I gotta say this kind of dumbing down is absolutely necessary for a large portion of the population regardless of their qualifications.

Turns out people who aren't particularly intelligent but can follow directions do well in school and life right up until the point they're promoted just beyond their ability.

Then you're stuck explaining basic things to the manager who never understood it in the first place.

 

[drew]

We were able to implement the graveyard in Oolite - currently the only version of Elite that has this particular bit of lore in it.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Zieman]

Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?

Why is freight sent by ground transportation called a shipment while freight sent by ship called cargo?

These two are easy! As renowned internet research man Mmuguleth Mulungu tells us: English is actually three languages posing as one.

 

[Old Duck]

What drives me nuts way more than inconsistencies in Lore is inconsistencies in day-to-day game logic. Why can I buy palladium at the hardware store but I must smash rocks to get my own iron, nickle, and zinc? Why do I need a refinery to process basic minerals, but I can magically extract perfect iron, nickle, and zinc by just shooting a rock? Why do these refined minerals occupy tons of volume in my cargo hold, but my iron, nickle, and zinc (which can be used to build truck-sized limpets) fit into my RemLock suit pockets?

WHO IN POT-SMOKING BRITAIN CAME UP WITH THIS IMMERSION-BREAKING MAGIC SYSTEM?

This is the main reason I refuse to do synthesis except when out exploring (the one place gathering my own materials for survival makes sense) and only do modest engineering. No amount of head-canon can explain away this Hogwarts Doctor Strange Magic. [insert 'GRRRR' emoji]

 

[M00ka]

What drives me nuts way more than inconsistencies in Lore is inconsistencies in day-to-day game logic. Why can I buy palladium at the hardware store but I must smash rocks to get my own iron, nickle, and zinc? Why do I need a refinery to process basic minerals, but I can magically extract perfect iron, nickle, and zinc by just shooting a rock? Why do these refined minerals occupy tons of volume in my cargo hold, but my iron, nickle, and zinc (which can be used to build truck-sized limpets) fit into my RemLock suit pockets?

WHO IN POT-SMOKING BRITAIN CAME UP WITH THIS IMMERSION-BREAKING MAGIC SYSTEM?

This is the main reason I refuse to do synthesis except when out exploring (the one place gathering my own materials for survival makes sense) and only do modest engineering. No amount of head-canon can explain away this Hogwarts Doctor Strange Magic. [insert 'GRRRR' emoji]

Yep, got to love the convoluted thought process by some Dev who came up with the twisted concept that we can take weightless items (our mats), magically add them together in a ship by using some un-named machine and produce a physical item that has weight and volume. Think about it, you can take 10 units/things of Iron and the same amount of Nickel and suddenly you have an autonomous drone capable of performing varied functions. That is one hell of a mixing bowl they have on a ship!

 

[HAMM3R]

What drives me nuts way more than inconsistencies in Lore is inconsistencies in day-to-day game logic. Why can I buy palladium at the hardware store but I must smash rocks to get my own iron, nickle, and zinc? Why do I need a refinery to process basic minerals, but I can magically extract perfect iron, nickle, and zinc by just shooting a rock? Why do these refined minerals occupy tons of volume in my cargo hold, but my iron, nickle, and zinc (which can be used to build truck-sized limpets) fit into my RemLock suit pockets?

 

[Old Duck]

Yep, got to love the convoluted thought process by some Dev who came up with the twisted concept that we can take weightless items (our mats), magically add them together in a ship by using some un-named machine and produce a physical item that has weight and volume. Think about it, you can take 10 units/things of Iron and the same amount of Nickel and suddenly you have an autonomous drone capable of performing varied functions. That is one hell of a mixing bowl they have on a ship!

I often self-nerf for the sake of immersion, so I don't synthesize without an AMFU on board (which I visualize as a 3D printer and RD2D repair bot). Now I'm thinking I might make a new rule for myself - no more gathering raw materials unless I have a refinery on my ship.

Hmmm...... I like it!

Good thing the Type-7 is one of my favorite exploration ships, because I'm going to need the extra slots!

 

[Darkfyre99]

Back to topic. I dislike in high sec systems illegal missions are brazenly on the mission board. It's a bit like going to the noticeboard in Tesco's and it saying "wanted" hitman to take care of meddling wife.. or delivery driver needed to deliver 2 kilos of heroin. Good prices paid .
To me these missions should only be on open markets in anarchy space OR via a shady contact in high sec, one we only get access to when we have built up a certain rep with the right people.

Personally, the fact that outright illegal contracts, which are never sting operations, are displayed openly on Pilots' Federation maintained contract boards is one of the reasons for my headcanon that the Pilots' Federation has become a cancer within the 34th century human society in the Elite Universe. That, and the fact that I consider BGS play fairly sociopathic when viewed from the point of view of an ordinary person in the Elite Universe. The crime and punishment system (administered by the Pilots Federation, BTW) makes it trivial for Pilots Federation members to operate above the law. Throw Powerplay into the mix, and you've got situation where the Pilots' Federation seens to be actively throwing fuel onto a smoldering file to an effort to set it ablaze.

The Elite Universe has always come across as fairly cyberpunk-ish IMO. Between corporate towns the size of entire systems, the major Powers permitting legal (but highly-regulated) debt-slavery on the one hand, and protecting de-facto debt-slavery on the other hand, and chattel-slavery being a common practice in independent Human Space, life isn't very pretty for a large proportion of Humanity, especially those who don't have the privilege of living on a habitable or terraformed world.

While I'm sure it was unintentional, many of Frontier's design decisions in this game, especially those that catered to the Veruca Salts of the community, have transformed the players from being minor pawns at the mercy of the bigger Powers around them, into the major Power in our own right, who can make even the mighty Federation and Empire dance to our tune. A single player can shape the fate of an entire star system. A small group of players can alter the fate of many, and Powerplay is designed to manipulate the fate of the Superpowers themselves.

When I designed my main character, I intended her to be a villain in the eyes of the Federation, an ex-Imperial Slave turned Agent of the Empire! who actively worked against Federation interests. Little did I know back in 2012, that by the time the game would go live, exactly how much villainy being a member the Pilots Federation actually enabled.

 

[Vithigar]

My solution is that FTL comms now exists, but it's new, has a low bandwidth, and is unsecure. So you can only send/receive brief messages, and nothing that you'd need to keep secret (such as the commercially-sensitive data involved in courier missions).

I was GMing a game of EDRPG and had a player ask me about FTL comms and if they existed. My answer was similar, but with some elaboration. Yes, it exists and the players could use it if they liked, but it's terribly insecure. Not because of any intrinsic problem with how FTL comms work (the idea of not being able to encrypt a particular type of communication strains credulity, just make your message the encrypted payload), but rather because in the weird future of the 34th century cryptography has been "solved", and there are no ways to secure data that cannot be quickly and efficiently cracked. If you want something to remain a secret you simply cannot transmit it, ever.

Of course, this causes problems with the one big lore elephant in the room, namely telepresence. Luckily none of my players asked.

 

[Old Duck]

Ironically true FTL comms (which I suspect would use some form of entanglement) would be ultra-secure.

In my headspace, there is no FTL comms*, but ships with the GalNet app automatically download the latest news from nav beacons and then updates other nav beacons with that news, thus spreading the news quickly via "word-of-mouth" (in this case, data of ship). As for email messages, these are preprogrammed AI messages, similar to what was used in the TV show Andromeda. Ironic, since this is exactly what they are IRL - the game is programmed with canned responses based on success or failure.

* I don't give much thought to in-system FTL, since ED completely ignores the speed of light, otherwise I could watch myself transition into a system by outrunning the light from that event. Supercruise is pure magic (whereas hyperspace wormholes are at least plausible).

 

[Vithigar]

In my headspace, there is no FTL comms*, but ships with the GalNet app automatically download the latest news from nav beacons and then updates other nav beacons with that news, thus spreading the news quickly via "word-of-mouth" (in this case, data of ship). As for email messages, these are preprogrammed AI messages, similar to what was used in the TV show Andromeda. Ironic, since this is exactly what they are IRL - the game is programmed with canned responses based on success or failure.

I've always liked that explanation much more, to be honest, but I wanted to maintain some degree of consistency with how things could be observed to be working in ED.

Your on board galnet (and BGS/powerplay data) not updating when in uninhabited systems would've been a really nice touch. Doubly so if when ships met in the black they synced to whichever ship had the newest data.

 

[zimms]

[...]

* I don't give much thought to in-system FTL, since ED completely ignores the speed of light, otherwise I could watch myself transition into a system by outrunning the light from that event. Supercruise is pure magic (whereas hyperspace wormholes are at least plausible).

But you're not travelling with a speed > c. You are just changing location and the distance you moved would be equivalent to X times c. It's all a bit complicated.

 

[Old Duck]

But you're not travelling with a speed > c. You are just changing location and the distance you moved would be equivalent to X times c. It's all a bit complicated.

Irrelevant. Light is still traveling at C, so as I move away from the star, everything should shift both in frequency (colors shift) and time (things 10 light minutes away should "fast-forward" as I approach them and "rewind" as I leave them). The view from our cockpits while in SC should be anything but what it is. It's magic, I tell you, magic.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Thing is for Telepresence to be a thing, but then use the logic that FTL data transmission works but is only secure enough for telepresence not for data packets....

Think about that for a second.... that would mean it is ok to allow a hackable data stream access to your ships weaponry or controls which could then be used to cause all sorts of issues if someone hacked it....... BUT it is not ok to transmit the cost of grain or beans in leesti because it is not secure enough.

I know the bottom line some will say is , "it is just a game" and that is true.... but well written games manage to have enjoyable mechanics AND maintain a persistant narrative within its own rules.

Ships crew will (I still hope) 1 day fix all of this.... if Jimbob wants to do some multicrew with me, they can either board my ship - getting in the same instance has never been that big a deal for those playing in wings!!!.... OR for that session they can not play their own CMDR but instead can play the role of my crewmate, levelling him/her up for me at the same time.

Any cash made can be added to the helping players account, but lets keep that out of the lore... It could just be a message from the Bank of Zaonce that X money had been deposited into your account from an anonymous donor who you had done great work for in the past. Given how laughably easy it is to get to Elite now, I dont think it is an issue that players dont get PF progression when in MC personally.
Rep made or lost with factions in multicrew could either be ignored OR if FD wanted that to count, again, it just gets added to the CMDR but no mention of it in the lore (same coudl work for PF ranking as well if it was deemed really necessary)

 

[zimms]

Irrelevant. Light is still traveling at C, so as I move away from the star, everything should shift both in frequency (colors shift) and time (things 10 light minutes away should "fast-forward" as I approach them and "rewind" as I leave them). The view from our cockpits while in SC should be anything but what it is. It's magic, I tell you, magic.

Moooom! Old Duck is killing my immershun again!

 

[MadDogMurdock]

But you're not travelling with a speed > c. You are just changing location and the distance you moved would be equivalent to X times c. It's all a bit complicated.

Old Duck is correct - the method of travel is irrelevant, the result is not.

If you effectively 'move' at faster than light, then you outpace your earlier presence in the system - e.g. your moment of arrival.
That event is propagating in normal space at the speed of light, so you could in theory look back at the main star and see yourself arrive.

 

[zimms]

Sure, if you are talking about real physics. You always have to be a bit creative when talking about SciFi.

While changing your frame of reference, the FSD has to create what we could call a safe space protective bubble in order to not get destroyed. The real space isn't observable from within that bubble.

You also can't "look back" because what happened "then" didn't actually happen for the reality in your frame and what was "then" and should now be "now" isn't "now" because it didn't happen and would now have to be "then" which it can't because you've now just missed it.

You know what I mean? If you do, please tell me because I have no clue.

 

[HAMM3R]

You also can't "look back" because what happened "then" didn't actually happen for the reality in your frame and what was "then" and should now be "now" isn't "now" because it didn't happen and would now have to be "then" which it can't because you've now just missed it.

Reminds me of this

 

[[VR] DDM_Reaper20]

Touché.

My point is that the faction would be far more dynamic and FUN to play if the HQ of the pirate lord was on the move, as an actual pirate.

• Take control over anarchy systems in other PP factions areas
• This ownership is HIDDEN from the controlling player from the other faction
• The pirates now leech power from adjacent systems with racketeering, bribes, corruption and illegal trades, as criminals do
• In order for the faction to realize they are getting less points than they should is to investigate the anarchy systems

Instead we have clear influence shown like it's posted on facebook instead as organized crime is, usually hidden.

Personally i would rather see PP faction rewards completely removed and added as bonuses doing missions for minor factions within their sphere of influence. Influence from minor factions are then also added to the PP faction you serve.

So instead of the weekly GRIND you play the game as usual doing missions and get bonus perks to mission rewards depending on rank within the PP faction.

That is an awesome idea. I seriously suggest you put it in the proper forum, so that FDEV sees it.

 

[Darkfyre99]

@zimms,

Ordinary matter moving faster than light, as we understand it, is time travel. Our understanding of physics demands it, and it’ll create all kinds of paradox if it happened in real life. It has the potential to violate causality.

Good science fiction, with believable FTL, finds a way of doing so without violating causality. One sci-if story I read, after a ship perfirmed a tactical in-system FTL jump to surprise an enemy, took the time after it was all over to watch themselves “in the past” as the light from the halfway across the system reached their current system. There’s no reason something similar can’t happen in Elite.

Whether its worth Dev time to do something similar, or other pseudo-FTL phenomenon is another matter entirely.